november already

Well. Birthday season has come and gone. My babies are now 12, 10 and 7, and their little sister (the real baby of the family) is 2-and-a-half. I always breathe a sigh of relief after the last birthday party. From the end of the summer until the middle of October, the calendar seems absolutely packed. Then, come November, it slows down.

This usually tricks me into thinking I have some time to relax, to attend to the things that were dropped during birthday season. Inevitably, the result is that suddenly I find myself at the end of the first week in December, thinking, what?? Advent, already? Christmas is just around the corner, and here I have been twiddling my thumbs (or focusing on teaching, writing, and that sort of thing--which, as far as the children are concerned, might just as well be twiddling my thumbs).

I would say this year I am determined to do things differently, but it's unlikely. So November will be the usual joy it is: really, truly autumn, with time for family walks and meals with friends. We had a visit from Lewis's family last week, which was delightful. Lucy, who has just begun to remember things properly, keeps asking, 'Where baby Zachary [her cousin]?' and 'Where grandma and grandad?' Already she's looking forward to a trip to London at the end of the month 'to see baby Zachary.' From her point of view, that's the main thing, though I am taking her along to London because I have a meeting.

Iain's birthday party seems like a year ago already. Thank goodness it hasn't been that long: I am not ready for anything like that again. Twenty-five kids at an adventure park, with a birthday supper and ice cream in a room too small with terrible acoustics. And not cheap, either. But it was what he really, really wanted (until it got noisy in the room), and he had a blast (apart from the very noisy room). He continues to be interested in tanks and battles, and draws and paints all sorts of things. He wants to have an art show...

The big news in Thomas's world is that he is now playing for the school football (soccer) team, and they win a lot. Their season is over (thank goodness), and he only has a few more Saturdays of the current season with his other team. Even that team won one last Saturday, so things look up. This is especially important, since Chelsea (Thomas is a rabid Chelsea supporter) lost to Newcastle last weekend as well. I was glad that the plan to take him to the match ran aground. The experience of being there would have been unbearable for all concerned, I think. So he has a match in London to look forward to in the Spring. Another trip for me, and I don't mind. I enjoy the experience of the football stadium and we'll plan to go to a game Chelsea will win easily. Good times!

This evening, I told Anna and Lucy that it was time to go upstairs to get ready for bed, and Lucy promptly informed me, 'Anna reading me a story.' Indeed. Although Anna still hasn't quite got the hang of reading the words, she's always been very good with books, and can narrate a board book effortlessly. So, yes, in a sense, Anna was 'reading' Lucy a story. Beautiful to watch.

So goes November. It will be over before I know it. And if your Christmas card is late, I apologize in advance. At least now you know why.

Irreversible

Today I was spluttering and fuming about the boys being late out of school. Thomas thought he had practice (soccer or football, or futbol, depending on your country of origin), but he didn't. So he appeared after all the rest of the kids in his class, fully kitted out. He didn't get the message--either about the cancellation of practice or about being out promptly so we'd be back for Anna when she arrived home. The mini-bus won't drop her if we aren't there, of course, but I hate to make them wait, and hate even more the extra half hour she spends dropping off the rest of the kids if we aren't back in time.

 

Needless to say, I was feeling pretty stressed. Iain couldn't help but notice. 'I have something that will cheer you up, mummy,' he said in his most cheerful and pleased tone of voice. 'Look what's on my jumper.' On his school sweatshirt he had a round sticker that sparkled just a little, and read 'Headteacher's Award.' Inside, I am thinking, That's lovely, but we are still going to be late; aloud, I said (as you do), 'that's great, Iain!' in the most cheerful tone I could muster. 'How did you earn that?' I asked. 'For knowing what the word irreversible meant.'

 

Irreversible? This is a kid who draws and paints and makes really cool stuff out of Lego, who also still writes b and d and k backwards quite often, and who is just deciding that reading might actually be of some use (i.e. it might be fun). 'So,' I responded, 'what does it mean?' He said, 'it's like when you cook an egg; you can't ever get it back to the way it was before.'

 

For a moment, I forgot entirely about the fact that we were late. In the end, we turned onto our street with Anna's minibus just two cars behind us. And I will try to keep in mind that moments like those are part of the irreversible process of my children growing up--absolutely priceless.

 

 

 

She's almost a teenager...

Anna is twelve. So she's into makeup, likes Monster High, and goes to secondary school (which would be middle school in the US--6th grade). After school, she usually goes up to her room for a while. When she re-emerges, she's wearing a totally different set of clothes. But she still plays with Barbies and lines up all her dolls and cuddly toys to play 'school.' And she still enjoys the 'How do dinosaurs...' book series, as well as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and all of its sequels.

One of the fantastic things about Anna being twelve and having a little sister who's two is the way they (sometimes) play together. This evening, I was reciting (not singing--I didn't grow up with it, and don't know the tune) 'Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear.' Suddenly Lucy turned to Anna and held out her hand, for Anna to repeat the nursery rhyme and the motions (that end with a tickle, if you aren't familiar with it). And so she did--over and over. She enjoyed Lucy's giggles as much as I do. Saying the nursery rhyme wasn't a chore, it was a delight for her as well as for her little sister.

Ah, maternal bliss. Don't worry. I'm sure it won't last long...

like this

Yesterday, I took Anna, Iain, and Lucy along to Thomas's football match. Usually he has two matches on a Saturday, one at 11:20 and the next at 12:30. The break between them is too long, and the others tend towards chaos. But yesterday it was just the one, at 11:20. Lewis had work to do, so I thought I'd take everyone out.

Lucy fell asleep on the way there. So when we arrived, I took a few plastic shopping bags (you know, the strong, reusable ones you keep in the car) and put them in my tote bag, so we'd have something to sit on. If I have to hold Lucy, I can't stand around for an hour, and the ground is always damp. Always. Of course, as soon as I put Lucy down on them, she woke up, and I thought we might be in for a lot of fussing. But no. We had a snack, then moved to where Thomas's match was about to begin.

Iain played behind us, and Anna found some stickers in my bag. Lucy happily stuck them to her top, and I actually watched Thomas play. I thought, as I looked around, 'this is what I thought it would be like...' Girls playing happily, Iain staying close, allowing me to support the team.

Of course, it only lasted about 5 minutes. Then Anna spotted someone's dog, and we never sat down again. But it was nice while it lasted.

Half rubber

Here is Thomas, on the last day of our beach holiday. Above, he's pitching, below, batting.

It looks like baseball, from this distance. The bat is the same. The ball is different. Apparently during the depression baseballs were cut in half, so you got more baseball for your dollar (or probably a lot less than a dollar). A game developed around these oddly-shaped balls: half-rubber. In some places in the south, it is still played, and we met a family who are enthusiasts. Because the father who invited Thomas to play with his sons came from a large family, the siblings and their children can get a pretty good game together now when they gather for family holidays in the summer.

Thomas gravitated toward the action as soon as it started, of course. His instinct that a sport is being played is uncanny. And he's instantly riveted. I was glad for the hospitality of this big family, who included him in the warm-ups and taught him how to hold a baseball bat. Thomas took to it straightaway, and would have played all afternoon and the next day, too, but we were winding up our time on Tybee and parted with great disappointment.

Our time at the beach was fantastic: a good time was indeed had by all.

One red VW

If I ever do write the memoir of my time in Durham, which I want to call 'Driving in England', the story of Anna's ascent of a neighbor's car will have to find its way in. She has always been a climber, and is pretty skilled, actually. If I hadn't seen her standing on top of our car a number of times already, I might have freaked out and not just told her to get down. Might have been better all around if I had. Because of course she didn't get down, as she could see I was in a conversation with a different neighbor. As I turned back to check, the owner of the car and his parents (?) emerged from the house shouting, first at Anna, and then at me.

 

I am pretty sure nobody has ever shouted quite so abusively at me before. The man yelled about his car, worried that Anna had damaged it (with her crocs?), while the other two people shouted rhetorical questions about the quality of my parenting. Shocked, I took Anna by the hand and walked away, utterly speechless. He demanded an apology and threatened to call the police. Nothing I said made any difference, though; he just kept getting angrier and eventually swore at me in front of the children. By the time I got Anna back to our house she was crying. The man and the two older people with him spent the next 45 minutes wandering around the car musing loudly over the damage Anna caused. So when I had to walk past a few minutes later to collect Iain from another neighbor's, they started in on me again. Thankfully the other neighbor offered to keep Iain a little while longer and walk him back, thus sparing him the ordeal. Eventually the owner of the car called me a moron, and demanded to speak to my husband, since I was useless.

 

Obviously Anna shouldn't have been there. But I was (and am) completely flabbergasted by the response. Really? This is the procedure for dealing with an 11-year-old girl climbing on your car? I apologised; I offered to pay for the damages. He didn't seem even to hear that. He followed me home and returned later to speak to Lewis.

 

Tonight as Anna was getting ready to go to bed, she clung to me in the way she does in a scary scene in a movie. I asked her what she was afraid of. 'Him', she said.

 

I didn't have to ask her who 'he' was.

 

 

 

 

'fashion paints'?

There are plenty of stories from our visit to the US this summer. Iain improved his swimming dramatically, Lucy discovered the joy of water wings, Thomas learned to handle a kayak, and Anna found that she likes crab. Consider this post the first installment of the 'holiday' series. Hopefully it will be cheering for all (not least of all, me) as the seasons change and our tans fade.

We vacationed on Tybee Island during the summers when we lived in Atlanta, so we were delighted to go back to somewhere fun and 'foreign', and yet familiar...and hot! Dressing for the day involved choosing which bathing suit to wear for the beach or pool. Wonderful.

One day, as Anna and I were walking back from the beach together, she insisted on 'fashion paints'. It wasn't the first time, either. The day before, when we were sitting at the table, she had said she wanted 'some of those paints'. Which paints? I asked. 'Those fashion paints', she replied. Fashion paints? I wondered. Some new nail polish maybe? No. That wasn't it. Clearly, it was something we had seen together before, but I couldn't figure out what. Eventually I said that she would have to point it out the next time we saw it. Patient girl!

Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I must have been working on the puzzle. When she asked me on the way back from the beach, we rehearsed some of the same things. Then I remembered something we had seen and talked about: airbrush tattoos. Ah-ha! Which one do you want? CAT. She even knew that she wanted it on her leg:

Mystery solved!